Theresa Villiers shuts door on third runway at Heathrow

Transport Secretary Theresa Villiers has implacably ruled out a third runway
for Heathrow despite hopes key members of the Government were softening
their stance towards expansion at Britain’s only hub airport.

Ms Villiers stressed at a conference in London that, although there were divergences of opinion within the Coalition on aviation policy, the Government would look at all options for increasing capacity in the South East “with the exception of a third runway at Heathrow”.

“The Coalition has always been clear that its doesn’t support a third runway at Heathrow - one of the very first acts as government was to confirm that,” the Transport Secretary said.

“The quality of life aspect of a third runway with up to 22,000 more flights over London every year would be massive and there’s no technological solution in sight to ensure planes become quiet enough, quickly enough to make this burden in any way tolerable. So we need another solution.”

The clear message will come as a major blow to Heathrow’s operator BAA and airlines including BA and Virgin, which have consistently warned the UK is losing out on jobs and investment due to the lack of capacity at the London's hub.

Ms Villiers’ tough stance could also potentially put the Government on a legal collision course with BAA, which cautioned it could go down the route of a judicial review if Heathrow was the one option barred from an inquiry into how to solve the UK’s capacity problems.

BAA said yesterday: “None of the options for providing new hub capacity is easy, but all options should be on the table.

“It is important that major decisions by Government follow due process and the option to seek a judicial review if they do not, is always available. We expect the Government to carefully consider the pros and cons of all options and consult properly before taking any policy decisions.”

BAA chief executive Colin Matthews unveiled new research at the same conference, organised by Transport Times, showing that 53pc of foreign airlines were increasing their flights out of other countries due to a lack of available take-off and landing slots at Heathrow.

The operator claims Britain is losing its competitive edge due the Government’s inertia on capacity expansion. Heathrow currently serves 180 destinations compared to Frankfurt, which serves 262.

Particular concerns have been raised about connections to China, and Heathrow campaigners point out that there are seven major Chinese cities that are served by European airports but not by London.

However, Ms Villiers challenged the assertion that Britain is losing its competitive edge on aviation.

She acknowledged that both Heathrow and Gatwick were operating close to full capacity but insisted: “It’s simply not the case London’s connectivity is falling off a cliff edge.”

She argued that if the 3,000 flights a year to Hong Kong were included in statistics, they would show Britain led the market in terms of connectivity in China.

The Coalition has delayed its aviation White Paper, the 11th to be produced since the last full-length runway was built in Britain in 1946, until the summer.

Ms Villiers gave a strong steer that the Coalition would examine ways of using existing capacity more efficiently to target routes of “greater strategic importance” to the UK economy.

She hopes to persuade airlines such as BA that some short-haul routes could be replaced by other modes of transport, such as high speed rail, and those airports slots could be re-deployed to serve long-haul destinations.

“What we are doing in terms of high spreed rail will provide a very attractive alternative to thousands of short-haul flights which are now going to Heathrow,” Ms Villiers said.

“By providing an attractive alternative for some of those short-haul flights, there is scope to release capacity for the destinations which are of greater strategic importance to the UK.”

The Transport Secretary also gave hope to Gatwick and Stansted, which both have expansion ambitions, that Ministers would consider that case for a new runway to be built at another London airport.

Gatwick is the world’s biggest single runway airport in the world and is seeking to rival Heathrow by offering more connections to destinations in emerging markets.

Ms Villiers was restrained from discussing “Boris Island”, a proposed new airport for the Thames Estuary, due to the purdah period for the London mayoral elections.